First published in 1814, this is a study of three families - the Bertrams, the Crawfords and the Prices - in which Jane Austen uses the unlikely heroine, Fanny Price, to explore the social and moral values by which these families' lives are ordered. The text is taken from R.W.Chapman's Oxford edition, edited by James Kinsley and with additional notes from John Lucas. The new introduction is by Marilyn Butler, whose critical works include "Jane Austen and the War of Ideas" and "Romantics, Rebels and Reactionaries".